Frozen
by jncar
Summary: Regina, Mr. Gold and Henry all find their own ways to cope with being trapped in a town frozen in time. Genfic


Author's note: This is my first time in this particular fandom, but as I was re-watching episodes to gear up for the new season I couldn't help but wonder how the "frozen in time" aspect of Storybrooke appeared to the few characters who were aware of what was really happening, and how they might react to it. So this is my tale of 3 of those four characters: Regina, Mr. Gold, and Henry.

Frozen

It took Regina most of the first year to adjust. The world wasn't radically different from the one she grew up in. Oh, the technology was astonishing at first. But people still lived the same sorry lives that they did anywhere else—lives full of lies and sorrows, secrets and regrets, intrigues and bitterness. Once she adapted to the new culture and the new conveniences, she felt right at home.

It gave her endless pleasure to observe the plights of all those who once stood against her. She grinned at the sight of one princess left pregnant and alone, and another locked away in an asylum. She laughed to see the cricket-conscience trapped as a bumbling "therapist," and the once powerful fairies stuck as poverty-stricken adherents of a bizarre religious sect.

Best of all, to see Snow White stuck in the role of a homely, lonely school teacher, forever surrounded by children but forever separated from her own child. And her dear prince, once the man of action, now confined to a permanent sick-bed. Yes, their fates were the sweetest on Regina's tongue.

There were a few points that left her disappointed. None of the others had any trouble whatsoever adapting to the new world. No one else had to learn a new vocabulary. No one else struggled to understand telephones, gas stoves, or automobiles. That was Regina's lot, alone. A strange quirk of the curse. But the difficulties were worth it. She was ruler of this all. She'd destroyed their hopes and dreams. She'd stolen their happiness.

A trifling inconvenience was nothing in comparison with the glory of her victory.

Well—learning to live without magic stung a little.

And seeing "Mr. Gold" so powerful and prominent rankled her. But a deal was a deal. And a victory was a victory.

The full extent of the curse didn't sink in until the end of that first year, as the calendar rolled over from December 31st to January 1st. And she watched the world re-set itself.

Each and every person in Storybrooke instantly returned to the circumstances in which they'd found themselves at the beginning of the previous year, with no memory of having lived it.

Frozen in time. Stuck in an endless loop.

Regina grinned as she strode the streets, the unmoving clock looming overhead. She watched all the people around her, knowing full well the tragedies and losses that each of them would experience all over again in the coming year. And again in the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that . . .

-.-.-

Mr. Gold found himself in a unique position—holding all the memories of his true life, as well as of this new, fabricated existence. It was a little loophole he'd built into the curse himself. Regina didn't know, of course. Nor did he intend to tell her.

The loss of his magic ached for the first several years. It had been a steep price to pray. But he adapted. He'd always been good at adapting.

He puttered in his shop, surrounded by the anonymous mementos of the lives his fellow citizens had lost to his curse. And he learned to enjoy the small thrill of power he felt as he strode through town collecting rents, watching the others cower before him over nothing more than money.

What a strange and wonderful world, where the contents of a man's wallet mattered more than the power of his weapons.

It peeved him to see Regina striding about with that smug smile on her face, confident in her victory.

But there were loopholes. More loopholes than she'd ever know. And he was a very patient man.

So he let Regina continue to strut in her arrogant ignorance, while he quietly began communicating with a network of private investigators, journalists and criminals living in the wider world, outside Storybrooke.

Somewhere, out there, in that grand big world that the curse prevented him from entering, was a man who had once been his son.

Eventually, he was certain that he would find him.

-.-.-

Regina found that she could do anything she liked.

She could order arrests. She could direct Sidney to expose the secrets of anyone she chose. She could have Mary Margaret fired from her job, or arrange for Marco to lose his hand in an "accident," leaving him destitute and unable to work.

She could ruin any one of them on a whim.

And Regina could also take whomever she wanted to take.

There was Graham—always Graham, her sweet pet. But, when bored, she'd strike further afield, seducing Dr. Whale one year, a lowly garage owner the next. One year she even dallied with Sidney for a time.

But never Mr. Gold. The bargain they'd struck in their past life still haunted her.

But any other man was fair game. Any other life was hers to toy with, or to ruin. And at the beginning of every new year, it would all be wiped clean. She could start her game all over again.

-.-.-

Mr. Gold watched with fascination as every new year Storybrooke "updated" itself, the fashions, technologies and vocabulary subtlety changing to keep pace with the outside world. The complexity of the curse he'd woven still managed to thrill him. What an expert he'd been. What a marvel.

That type of power may no longer be his, but he held out hope for the future. Loopholes, after all. He'd been an expert at loopholes.

After thirteen years, his network of contacts outside Storybrooke still failed to find Baelfire.

But they'd found someone else.

A golden-haired orphan girl with a bad attitude.

Still fifteen years to go before the biggest loophole he'd built into the curse came to fruition. But knowing that golden-haired troublemaker was out there, waiting, warmed his heart.

All in good time.

He could be patient. And, in the meantime, he could keep an eye on her.

-.-.-

Though the sensation had been settling on Regina for years, the realization of what had happened hit her like a bolt of lightning one day over her morning coffee, reading the same headline in the daily paper that she'd been reading on that day for the past eighteen years.

She was bored. Dreadfully bored.

In these not-quite-two-decades she'd ruined and tortured her old adversaries dozens of times over in a wide variety of ways. She'd slept with every desirable man in Storybrooke (and, to be honest, several of the less desirable ones, too), and she'd wielded her mayoral powers to gain every ounce of comfort and prosperity that this little world had to offer.

Yet, the taste of her old victory had grown bitter. She'd begun to feel every bit as imprisoned as her foes.

For several months she struck out in anger and vengeance against every soul she could touch, but nothing satisfied.

She began to realize that stealing away their happiness wasn't enough anymore. After all these years, she'd started longing to find some happiness of her own.

One day, as she strode through the halls of Storybrooke Elementary School, on her way to have Mary Margaret fired (again), she stopped short at the sound of children's laughter. She lingered in the hallway and watched them make their way out to recess. The innocent joy on their faces made her heart ache.

In her lifetime she'd had a loving parent, a beloved sweetheart, countless men—including a husband—who adored her, armies at her command, magical powers beyond belief and extraordinary wealth. However, one thing that she'd never had was a child.

-.-.-

Coincidence was Mr. Gold's old friend.

Over the years many of the greatest successes in his life had come about by way of coincidence, and he'd learned to look out for exploitable coincidences with a very sharp eye.

Never had a more extraordinary coincidence come his way than this one. Just a few days after getting word that his golden-haired girl had just delivered a baby boy while behind bars for petty crimes, Regina came striding into his shop.

She looked, somehow, both haughty and humble at the same time as she asked him if any of his contacts outside of Storybrooke might be able to help her arrange to adopt a child.

Yes, coincidence was a dear friend indeed.

-.-.-

Motherhood proved to be a challenge and a marvel unlike anything Regina had ever done before.

She still went through the motions of keeping her old enemies in check, but with every passing month of little Henry's life she found her old obsessions fading. Those wretched people could go on living their pathetic lives without her interference—they still wouldn't find any lasting happiness.

Regina, on the other hand, had rediscovered joy in the sound of an infant's laughter, and in the tight grip of his fist around her finger.

This was what she'd been missing. The unconditional love she'd always longed for.

Let the others fester in their endless year.

She'd found something worth living for.

-.-.-

Mr. Gold watched from afar as Henry worked his way quietly but forcefully into the fabric of the curse.

Everyone in Storybrooke remembered him, even when their endless world re-set itself every New Year's Day. They all remembered that the mayor had an adopted son. They all remembered watching him come into her life, and they all remembered watching him grow and age, though none of them grew or aged along with him.

But, Mr. Gold wondered, would the boy remember _them_ growing and aging? How far would the genius of his curse extend? Would it be enough to annually re-set the mind of a child born outside of its power?

He hoped not.

-.-.-

The first few years of Henry's life were a time of real magic for Regina. Oh, there were frustrations and a steep learning curve, to be sure. But there was also love. And the never-ending delight at the miracle of watching her tiny child grow and develop. She hadn't been so happy since before Snow first came into her life.

The problem of the curse lingered in the background. At times she wondered how it would affect her son. How could she _not_ wonder? But she pushed her fears aside in favor of the fascinating new experiment of motherhood.

She noticed the problem for the first time not long after Henry turned five and the New Year rolled around.

Henry asked her why he'd been moved up to the big-kid class at his preschool, while all his other friends remained behind in the "baby class."

Regnina's chest grew tight with fear, but she kept her cool and explained to Henry that he was the most special boy in the world, and that was why he'd been moved up.

When the same thing happened again in Kindergarten, she explained that that was when classes changed in Storybrooke. Classes were always shuffled at the New Year, to keep things fresh.

She wondered how long her excuses would continue to convince him.

-.-.-

With every passing year, Mr. Gold watched Regina's unflappable façade begin to crumble. He could sense it coming—soon she would know his pain. She would know what it was like to lose a son.

A few years more. He could still be patient. In the end, it would be work every moment of those long twenty-eight years.

-.-.-

When Henry was seven he stopped asking for play-dates. He'd learned by then that none of his friendships would last. In a year, all his classmates would start looking up to him as a bigger kid. And in two years they'd all look like babies to him.

Henry watched television. He knew that kids were supposed to grow up together. They were supposed to move up grades together.

For a while he'd believed that he was the freak—but eventually he realized that it wasn't him. It was everyone else.

He was the only one in Storybrooke that ever changed. And whenever he asked his mom about it, she'd make up stories and act like he was seeing things.

Did she really think he was that stupid? Did he really think he'd believe her lies?

Henry stopped asking questions. At least, he stopped asking them out loud.

-.-.-

Regina watched Henry's growing isolation with an aching heart. Why hadn't she realized that this would happen? How had she been so blind?

For a time she considered homeschooling him, but that would only be a temporary solution, at best. The older he grew, the more aware he would become of the peculiarities of their small corner of the world. She wouldn't be able to lie to him anymore. But how would she ever be able to explain the truth?

She had to find a way out of Storybrooke.

She started experimenting—putting various townsfolk in situations that would promote or compel them to leave, just to see what would happen. Eventually, she felt certain she'd find something that worked.

And, in the meantime, she turned to another, more practical solution—one she never would have considered years ago. But love for a child can drive a mother to desperate measures.

She went to Archie and put Henry in therapy.

-.-.-

Henry became something of a news junkie. In a world where nothing seemed to change, he liked to keep track of the things that _did_. He watched national news and state news, and noted important events in a diary that he hid under his mattress.

And he read the local paper to track things that happened more than once. It took him more than a year to start finding incidents repeating themselves—but find them he did, and he carefully noted them down in his diary.

He also discovered a new pattern. Accidents kept happening to people who tried to leave.

One month the paper printed a story about a teen accepted to a prestigious out-of-state university who ended up with brain damage after a tragic mountain-biking accident. The next month a man leaving to attend a truck-driving school had a heart attack just before leaving town. Two months after that a pregnant teen tried to leave town, but ended up crashing her car just before the city boundary and miscarrying on the side of the road.

Henry's stomach churned as he read each new story of tragedy.

This town was a prison. Something trapped people here. Something terrible. And his mother seemed to know all about it.

He started having trouble sleeping at night. He kept having nightmares about being locked in a cage.

-.-.-

Mr. Gold watched Henry with eager anticipation.

The boy was clearly growing more troubled, and Regina's anxiety was beginning to show. The end was near. Very, very near.

However, in spite of all the care he'd put into his loopholes when planning the curse, he never liked leaving things to chance. So he began to prepare.

He used his outside contacts to hire a writer and an artist and commissioned a book of fairy tales. But he amended the stories from the bland, sanitized versions usually found in books of this sort in the wider world. No—this book would have the _real_ stories.

Not long after what he hoped would be the final New Year's re-set of his frozen little town, a package arrived at his shop. In it sat his book: a large, beautiful volume, titled, "Once Upon a Time."

A few days later when he stopped by Mary Margaret's apartment to do a surprise maintenance inspection, he brought the book with him. He told her he bought it in a box of old and rare books that someone had sold to the pawn shop, but that he didn't think it had much resale value. Perhaps she'd be able to use it in her classroom?

Mary Margaret was happy for the unexpected present.

Two weeks later, he spotted Henry reading the book on a park bench. The boy seemed riveted—entranced.

Mr. Gold smiled.

Soon it would be time to put the rest of his plan into motion.

-.-.-

Henry's whole world suddenly made sense.

With every new story he read, the people surrounding him came to life in a way they never had before. He finally understood why he felt so much closer to Miss Blanchard than to any of his other teachers. She was a hero. She was the one who dared to stand against the evil queen.

To stand against his mother.

So that explained why his mom always sneered when he mentioned Miss Blanchard.

His mom remembered the truth. She _had_ to. It was her curse, after all. And that was why she always lied to him. She didn't want him to find out who she really was, or what she'd really done. She didn't want him to know that she was evil.

But it was too late. He had the book. He knew the truth. Now he just needed to figure out what to do about it.

-.-.-

Regina felt lost.

Henry pulled further away from her every day. He still obeyed her and dutifully answered her questions about his school day. But there was no warmth. If anything, he seemed suspicious of her. Wary.

And his therapy sessions with Archie didn't seem to be helping anymore.

She'd seen the madness in Jefferson's eyes—she couldn't let Henry fall down that dark path. She had to do something.

Boarding school might be the answer. Something to get him out of Storybrooke for most of the year, so that the timelessness of the place impacted him less.

It hurt her heart to think about sending him away, but none of her attempts to get people out of Storybrooke had succeeded. There was no way to take him herself. She was running out of options.

-.-.-

For the right price, it was simple for Mr. Gold to hire someone to set up an artificial web-service purporting to help people find their birth mothers. And it was even simpler to post a few unobtrusive fliers for the service around town in places where Henry liked to wander, and where Regina was unlikely to see them.

A week passed. And then two. Then three.

Mr. Gold grew agitated. Fate alone might be enough to bring his golden-haired heroine to Storybrooke, but he didn't like relying on fate. Not when he could take the future in his own two hands.

If Henry didn't take the bait soon, he'd have to alter his plans.

Fortunately, five days before Emma's twenty-eighth birthday, the fake website got its first customer. The fee was paid with a credit card belonging to none other than dear Mary Margaret Blanchard.

Mr. Gold forced himself to be patient one last time, waiting just over thirty hours before sending the carefully prepared research on Emma to Henry's email address. Just long enough to convince a naïve and desperate young boy that the research had been done _after_ he contacted them, rather than before.

Everything had come together just as he planned. Now, all he had to do was wait.

-.-.-

When Henry got the email containing his birth mother's name and history, all the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.

Emma Swan, an orphan herself, nearing her twenty-eighth birthday. It had to be her. It just _had_ to be.

His mother was Snow White's daughter. That was why Regina had adopted him. To make her control of Snow White's family complete.

He had to get her back to Storybrooke in time. It was up to him to help her break the curse.

It took Henry three days to devise a way out of Storybrooke. A soda delivery truck dropped off its wares at local stores every afternoon. He laid in wait at its final destination and snuck on board while the delivery man wasn't looking.

As they drove toward the city boundary, Henry held his breath. He knew he'd been brought into Storybrooke from the outside world—but would he be able to leave? His stomach churned with nerves for what felt like forever, waiting for some horrible accident or illness to befall him. But it never came.

Instead, the truck pulled to a stop at its next destination, the back hatch was opened, and Henry snuck out while the delivery man had his back turned.

He'd made it. He was free.

It took less than an hour for Henry to find a bus station and book a trip to Boston for that evening.

As he settled into his bus seat, he smiled with an excitement he'd never felt before. He was on his way to find her. The hero. The child of destiny. Snow White's daughter. The savior of Storybrooke. _His mother._ A mother who wouldn't lie to him or try to make him doubt what he saw with his own two eyes.

A mother who would love him enough to tell him the truth. And who would trust him enough to believe the truth when he told it to her.

Today, he was going to be the hero of his own story.

-.-.-

Regina had never felt such terror as when she realized Henry was missing.

She knew he'd left Storybrooke. She felt it in her gut. And she had no power to follow him.

He could be anywhere—picked up by a pedophile, hit by a car and lying on the side of the road, in police custody in some distant town. How would she ever get her boy back?

Her heart leapt when she saw him approaching the front door late that night, and she ran out to embrace him with full determination to be a better mother. To finally find a boarding school where he could live out his life among normal children. To show him all the love and support her father had once shown her.

But then she saw the awkward blonde woman skulking along behind him, and heard him call her his ireal/i mom before running inside.

Regina stood in shocked silence, staring at this unwanted stranger. Then she composed herself. This was a setback, but not one she couldn't handle. She'd send the woman on her way, and make sure she never came back to trouble Henry's mind again.

But then, a few minutes into her conversation with the horrid woman, she mentioned Henry's book and how he believed everyone in town was a fairy tale character.

A rock dropped in the pit of Regina's gut. No. This couldn't be happening. Where had he gotten this book? How much did he know?

When the woman mentioned that he believed his shrink was Jiminy Cricket, Regina felt cold fear. Had she already lost her son?

Fortunately, the woman seemed willing—eager, even—to leave. Some mother _she'd_ have been. That ought to be enough ammunition to begin her campaign of damage control with Henry.

But the next morning, Henry was missing. Again.

And that woman—_Emma_—was still in town, locked in one of Graham's holding cells. And she wanted to help find Henry.

Everything was spiraling out of control.

As each new piece of Henry's trail was uncovered—the website and Mary Margaret's involvement—the rock in Regina's stomach grew heavier. What was happening? Had she brought this on herself when she dared to seek out true happiness?

When Emma returned Henry to her a second time, she hoped that she could finally start putting this ugly incident behind her and begin the healing process with her son.

Until Emma told her that yesterday was her birthday.

Regina's chest felt tight.

She'd heard the stories, of course. The tale of the one way to break the curse. That Snow White's daughter would return to be a savior of her people on her twenty-eighth birthday.

And twenty-eight years had passed since Regina's endless year in Storybrooke began.

It couldn't be. Her Henry. Her _son_ couldn't possibly be the child of this rumored savior.

And yet, she knew in her heart that it was true. Somehow, he was the blood grandson of her sworn enemy.

Fate had come back to bite her.

Were the women of that family born to do nothing but destroy everything she loved?

Regina felt the old steel reenter her heart. She'd come so far. She'd triumphed for so long. She couldn't lose now. Not to this vagabond unworthy of the title of mother.

She might not have her magic, but she was far from powerless.

After throwing every threat she could muster in Emma's face, she turned to stride back into her house, determined to begin planning a way to end the woman once and for all. That was when Emma's question stopped her cold.

"Do you love him?"

Regina turned, the anger in her heart flaring into a bonfire. "Of course I love him." And she would do everything in her power to keep him. Nothing would stand in her way.

-.-.-

Mr. Gold was a patient man. But the time for waiting had ended.

He greeted his golden-haired Emma with grim satisfaction.

When he stepped out of the inn, he looked up at the long-frozen clock, and waited.

The ticking of the minute hand sent a wave of ecstasy through his body as it hit Storybrooke with a tsunami of power.

Change was coming to Storybrooke—and no one but him knew just how vast that change would be.

Mr. Gold strode back to his shop with a smile on his face. He couldn't wait to see what happened next.

The End


End file.
